They needed an oracle to obscure the conspiracy, so it most likely follows that Edric is the most accomplished oracle they could afford. What he seems to sometimes lack in being quick on the uptake he mostly likely makes up for in being a really good cloaking device. I don't see him as being subservient, so much as willing to let others do the thinking at times when it will obtain him the desired result anyhow. I imagine that the Guild was pretty desperate at this point, so if that meant temporarily letting the BG and BT have a strong say in affairs they would accept it.

I agree with Freak, and think that the reason there isn't much to write about them is because there isn't all that much to them in general. They are pretty straightforward, and what Paul describes about them in Dune appears to be most of what there is to say on the matter: they are very control-oriented, logical, and efficient at balancing forces to make outcomes predictable. Once you know they desire predictability it seems to me that you know about as much about them as you need to. They are stuck in the pursuit of that goal, to a fault.

distrans wrote:I still find it striking that they can foresee paul as the problem and yet not offer an operative better than edric years later in attempt to thwart him

The Guild doesn't change. To them their 'best' is probably - from Paul's perspective - the most lame and predictable. Their entire ethos is about stability, and the most powerful navigator who studies their methods would likely also be the least adventurous and able to improvise. That is their fault. That Edric was potentially the best they had to offer is a testament to how inflexible and rooted in their ways there are. Based on what we learn in the last two books about the need to never be immobile and always improvising, we can look back on the Guild in the first three books and pretty easily conclude that they have become irrelevant and are useless. They are pretty much the opposite of being a group that can have any real effects on the universe after Paul came.

I think Edric only appears to be useless as a counterpoint to demonstrate the sort of intellectual plane that Scytale and the BG normally operate on. To all normal people, Edric would appear to be all powerful and incredibly intelligent.

I think Edric and the Guild were full partners in the consipiracy, as it brought together the remaining non-imperial power bases in the universe in the Guild, BG, and BT (assuming that the Landsraad and Great Houses are generally redundant at this stage).

As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.

pcqypcqy wrote:As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.

Not entirely true. At the end of Dune, it is the Guild who appoints Paul Emperor, simply because he can destroy the spice and interstellar travel. The Guild still has a monopoly on space travel afterwards. They still enforce the Great Convention.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

pcqypcqy wrote:As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.

Not entirely true. At the end of Dune, it is the Guild who appoints Paul Emperor, simply because he can destroy the spice and interstellar travel. The Guild still has a monopoly on space travel afterwards. They still enforce the Great Convention.

They do all this only on Arteides sufferance.

I don't think the Guild appointed Paul, he did that himself. The Guild withdrew their support for Shaddam, which is when Shaddam realised he was finished.

I don't think the Guild appointed Paul, he did that himself. The Guild withdrew their support for Shaddam, which is when Shaddam realised he was finished.

It all depends on who's more afraid of losing what they have. Paul had the power to destroy the spice, and thus end the Guild. But the Guild still had monopoly and therefore the power to end space travel, which would be just as devastating (and have a similar effect). Between the two we might have thought that this would result in a stalemate, except that clearly the Guild were much more afraid of losing what they had than Paul was. The Guild's entire way of thinking was focused on preventing loss and avoiding risk, so in the game of chicken with even footing it seems they buckled immediately. The irony of the situation is that the Guild's source of power had always been that they were the ones with the power to destroy space travel. Paul did to them exactly what they had been doing to everyone else.

That said I do agree with Freak that even though Paul seemed to be calling the shots, the relevant point is that the Guild withdrawing support from Shaddam is why we know Paul became Emperor right then and there. Shaddam wasn't even a party to that decision and wasn't required to accept. Whoever the Guild agreed to support *was* Emperor, which goes to show how much power they had been wielding thus far even though it was the Emperor the Great Houses feared.

distrans wrote:ive always concidered it that the nature of "the empire" changed a great deal that day

somewhat like rome transitioned from a republic to an empire

i think that the guilds action that day changed the nature of how power was distributed in that systemfar more than just an exchange of emperors

I see it more as everyone realizing what the real power structure had been all along. What changed was that it was finally made clear what happens when a person has control over the thing everyone needs. The Guild had that power before and chose to use it simply to make money and establish dominance. They apparently didn't want to rule as such, and maybe preferred others to play around with titles and fighting while they just sat back and wallowed in their control. But imagine what would have happened if the Guild had announced one day that unless they were put in control they'd simply cease allowing space flight? No one would have any choice, except that this would eventually cause a rebellion or resistance to form that would undo them. Being in charge makes you a target and so their conclusion - after having full option to be in charge - was that they preferred another to have the target painted on them and to have to do all the annoying work. It's almost like the Emperor was their lackey in a sense.

What changed with Paul was that the Guild no longer had a monopoly on threatening to end space flight, and they were more afraid of it than he was. So while they had all the power they had previously in terms of being able to make good on that threat, they were no longer the only party that could do this. And because of their unwillingness to take risks Paul knew he could completely dictate terms to them. As Scytale put it in DM, the Guild's limited prescience was their own downfall. Their power was specialized in risk avoidance, and they relied on it so much that they couldn't use any other method of reasoning.

Last edited by georgiedenbro on 26 Jun 2018 10:05, edited 2 times in total.

What's the line, always chosing the safe path leads ever downwards into stagnation? I think that was a major theme of the first book, which was picked up again and again in the series.

As to the nature of the empire, we are led to believe that before the battle of Arrakeen, the powers are the Emperor, the Landsraad, and the Guild (this is on Mohaim's little exposition on Caladan). Quite where the BG, BT or CHOAM fit in isn't really mentioned. The BT don't even get a mention in Dune (other than Tleilax simply being a planet that is the source of Twisted Mentats). CHOAM we are constantly told will rally around profits. The BG emerge as a power (at least to us as the reader) throughout the book.

I think what happened in the final chapters goes loosely as follows:

1. Paul exerted control over the Guild over his threat to spice. The Guild, being to weak to contemplate exercising their similar (though theoretical) threat to space travel, complied.2. The Emperor sees the writing on the wall, realising the Guild is against him. Though like someone said, he wasn't really required to agree, it just made things simpler.3. The Landsraad goes along with it because they can do nought else. Presumably the Landsraad IS Choam (at least those shares outside of the emperor's control), so they know a good deal when the see one (considering the alternative).

What happens after this as we know from subsequent books is that all power is concentrated in the emperor. This process must have taken some time (i.e. 12 years of Jihad), but by the time we read Dune Messiah, it's more or less accomplished.

But the other powers from pre-Dune still exist to some extent:

The Guild is still somewhat independent (i.e. discussion of the Tupile treaty), but as that discussion shows, Paul has the power to exert his will on them if he choses to. He choses not to for political (or other) reasons. The prolgue also mentions that He brought the Spacing Guild to its knees.

The Landsraad are mentioned in passing, but obviously they tried to resist in the intervening period (the prologue of Messiah talks of mercenaries bought with money voted in the Landsraad).

The BG and BT still play in the shadows as well.

So I dunno. I'd agree with teh statement that the nature of the empire has changed, but it looks to me that at least the facade of the previous power structure has been kept in place. Maybe to placate the masses.

distrans wrote:frank worked in the idea that it morally correct to allow a way out for your intended victim

did he get this idea from somewhere or was this is own original idea?

Well, if we're going to go down the "Tleilaxu = Islam" road, the concept would seem to loosely be a variant on the "convert or die" theme, which involves giving potential targets an out if they comply with changing their views. In the case of the Tleilaxu they're not trying to convert anyone, but they do seem to make plans around converting the agendas of others.

That said, I wonder whether the "way out" thing is meant to be a moral stance taken by the Tleilaxu, or more of a weird tick, like how the Riddler always has to announce his plans through Riddles, risking being caught. I sort of thought it was more of a Riddler thing, like they're trying to be oh so clever by placing an escape for their victims.